Syntax Commons^™

It’S Hella Cool: Investigating The Properties Of Hella, Lydia Lee

Yale Working Papers in Grammatical Diversity

Hella is known as a strongly characteristic feature of Northern California, particularly the San Francisco Bay Area (Waksler 2000, Boboc 2016). Based on data collected from public Twitter posts from 2013–2020 and examples drawn from Boboc (2016) and Waksler (2000), this paper investigates the origin, syntactic properties, and sociolinguistic aspects of hella. This study also draws on 1,389 responses to sentences (1)–(3), adapted from Boboc (2016), which were included in the Yale Grammatical Diversity Project’s survey work conducted on Amazon Mechanical Turk in 2019.

1. This seat reclines hella!
   ‘This seat reclines a lot.’
2. I spoke Spanish today for the …

A (Great) Many Of Many Constructions, Jim Wood, Squid Tamar-Mattis

Yale Working Papers in Grammatical Diversity

In this paper, we discuss a series of constructions across various English dialects involving the word many, drawing examples from the Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE) and web searches. The constructions include both standard and colloquial forms, including formally singular and plural constructions, as well as those employing a lot of and a great many. We connect these constructions to existing linguistic analyses, particularly those proposed by Kayne (2002, 2006, 2007a,b, 2017).

I Have A Survey On Lonely Transitives! Do You Want?, Linda Do

Yale Working Papers in Grammatical Diversity

In this paper, I describe a recently observed grammatical construction that the YGDP has termed "lonely transitives" (LonTs). Used by some speakers of English in informal contexts, the construction consists of a traditionally transitive verb used without an object. LonTs can only be used if there is sufficient prior linguistic or situational context to recover the null object and if the sentence retains the same meaning as the verb used with an overt object. Using the results of a survey I conducted, I discuss the syntactic distribution of LonTs and suggest that it may be much wider than previously established …

I Have Some Maps. Do You Want?, Ella Moran

Yale Working Papers in Grammatical Diversity

This paper investigates the distribution of the 'lonely transitive' (or LonT) construction using YGDP survey data. I analyze the distribution of this construction by interpolating acceptability judgment data to create a series of maps showing the likely acceptability of various LonT sentences for English speakers across the US. I find that the distribution of LonTs does not seem to be geographically conditioned and that a markedness hierarchy exists between the verbs want, have, and need.

Hella Much Variation: Intensification In Northern California English, As Seen Through The South Bay, Clara Mcmahon

Yale Working Papers in Grammatical Diversity

In this paper I present a unified syntactic analysis to account for all of the typical usages of the Northern California lexical item hella. Specifically, I focus on hella’s usage in the South Bay—a subregion of the San Francisco Bay Area which corresponds roughly to Santa Clara County. Contrary to Boboc (2016), who proposes that Bay Area speakers do not allow hella to modify silent elements, I provide evidence that hella is a degree word which can license silent elements for South Bay speakers. Using a silent MANY and a silent MUCH (Kayne 2005), all of hella’s …

Completive All In English And The Status Of All, Carolina Fraga

Yale Working Papers in Grammatical Diversity

In this paper I discuss a novel construction in English, restricted to existentials and possessive have sentences, exemplified by sentences such as There’s all sand in my hair. I argue that the syntax and the semantics of this construction, which I have labeled the completive all construction, can be explained only if all is understood to be modifying a silent element (in the sense of Kayne 2004). In particular, I propose that completive all sentences contain a silent SPACE element and a silent preposition WITH. All is the modifier of a PP headed by silent WITH and the nominal …

Microvariation In Verbal Rather, Jim Wood

Yale Working Papers in Grammatical Diversity

This paper uses survey results and interactive mapping tools to analyze correlations across different versions of the non-standard verbal use of the word rather, in particular with participial morphology, as in rathered. Across numerous possible instantiations of the construction, there appear to be in fact a quite limited number of grammars, which are generated by an implicational hierarchy of functional heads, along with the availability of a silent verb HAVE. The overall picture supports several broader conclusions. First, silent verbs can be licensed by head-moving to a modal head in the extended projection. This movement is freely available, but …

Get My Syntax On, Heidi Lei

Yale Working Papers in Grammatical Diversity

In this paper, I describe and analyze an instance of micro-syntactic variation in American English, a construction I refer to as get my X on. There is considerable flexibility in the construction, involving the types of determiners allowed, the phrasal verbs used, and most notably, the structure of the DP my X. In Standard American English, the X following a possessive pronoun is generally restricted to nouns. However, in this construction, X can be a lexical verb like sing, teach, or even celebrate. Some speakers of African American English accept only the bare verb, rejecting …

Touch Down In Pittsburghese, R. Thomas Mccoy

Yale Working Papers in Grammatical Diversity

In standard American English, down may take a DP object only if the DP indicates a path, as in I walked down the street. However, for some speakers of Pittsburgh English, it is also grammatical for down to take a DP object indicating a location or goal, as in She works down Baltimore (meaning ‘She works down in Baltimore’). In this work, I describe the distributional properties of this usage, which I name “touch down.” Based on these properties, I propose the syntactic analysis that touch down licenses a silent preposition where standard American English has an overt …